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Friendly Fire
Friendly Fire is a sprite webcomic written by Matt "Toadkarter" Lally and is a direct spin-off to The Scrambled Channel. Started on July 21st, 2007, the comic is still updating today on Fireball20xl alongside The Scrambled Channel and The Pixel. Creation and Conception Author Matt Lally was always interested in comics, ever since he first began spriting. He went through a number of unfunny and unorganized webcomics that normally didn't last longer than 30 issues. These comics included "A Toad's Life", "1,000,001 Stories of the Mushroom Kingdom", "Random Mess," and "Plumber 2 Plumber." After being heavely inspired by friends and fellow comic artists Ricky B. and Phil S., Matt began searching for a way to download photoshop without having to pay a ridiculous amount of money. This happened in the summer of 2007 and the beginning of a new era in his sprite comic career began. A quick test comic involving Teeks and Ton was made on July 20th to make sure he knew what he was doing. Friendly Fire was created a day later. Despite being a direct spin-off and using the same style as Ricky B.'s comic, The Scrambled Channel, he wasn't upset by Matt's decision and rather enjoyed the comic and began to work in bits and pieces of it into his own comic. Basic Premise The main idea of Friendly Fire is basically that of The Scrambled Channel, a bunch of friends hanging out playing video games and getting into some humorous situations and conversations. The beginning of Friendly Fire's run was heavily influenced by video game and video game jokes and gags became a staple for each issue. Later on duing it's run, it became less about video games and more about the characters and their jokes, much like The Scrambled Channel. Name The idea for the name for Friendly Fire came from the option in Super Smash Brothers Melee's versus mode. When a game is set to "Friendly Fire," teammates can actually hurt each other despite working as one. This fits the idea of video game based jokes and the fact that it's friends verbally insulting each other but all in good fun. Cast The main cast of Friendly Fire is the side cast of characters from The Scrambled Channel. While The Scrambled Channel, mostly focused on Meta, Nilla, Topaz, Zoro and Stick and The Pixel, focused on Rog, Jon and Bacon. Friendly Fire focused on the friends of these characters and gave them their own place to live and just be friends. The cast cosists of eight main characters or housemates Teeks, the author's character and main man of the comic. Silver, Teeks' right hand man in the house. Doku, the quirky Asian guy who never puts his DS down. Ton, the eldest and most sarcastic character in the house. Viper, the only female in the house. Plays a similar role to Nilla in the The Scrambled Channel. Oddy, the most off-beat and least seen member of the house. Tennis Ball, Teeks' pet. Josh, the guy nobody knows actually lives there. With the exception of Tennis Ball, all these characters are based off of real friends of the author and have been used in The Scrambled Channel. However, until their introduction, Viper, Oddy, Tennis Ball and Josh, were never featured in The Scrambled Channel. Characters including Meta, Nilla, Rog, Jon, Starkin, Jess, Stick and many other recognizable faces often make appearances to show that this is just another side of The Scrambled Channel. Reception Despite getting off to a bit of a rocky start, Friendly Fire is very popular with fans on Sheezyart and Fireball20xl a like. Fireball20xl webmaster, Psyguy, liked the comic so much he decided to host it on his site. It is unknown as to just how popular Friendly Fire is compared to the other comics on Fireball20xl, but the Alexa ratings show that it currently holds 4% of the average user visits. Story Arcs A total of three story arcs and one combined story arc have been seen throughout the course of Friendly Fire so far. The first arc being a DS competition where the members of Friendly Fire, The Scrambled Channel and The Pixel all competed in Albequerque, New Mexico for an unknown prize but ultimately lost to Bacon because he was upset they left him at home. The second arc involved the back story as to how Ton got his famous giant Sombrero seen in The Scrambled Channel. Unlike any other arc in Universe A history, this arc used photographs of a Ton stuffed animal and other action figures to tell the story. This arc was generally well recieved but didn't prove to be as popular as the arc that followed. The Quest for Brawl arc was a combined story arc between The Scrambled Channel and Friendly Fire. When Meta decides to build a time machine to get to Super Smash Brothers Brawl faster, four of the eight members of the Friendly Fire house went to his aid to help reach the goal faster. Back at home, Josh, Viper, Oddy and Tennis Ball wondered where the others had gone. When Viper explains that the others are helping Meta "Get to December 3rd," Josh quickly drags the others over to Meta's appartment. The four characters made a cameo appearance in the next issue of The Scrambled Channel. The main story was told via The Scrambled Channel, While what went on while the others were away was told in Friendly Fire. The most recent arc, dubbed "For Magnezone!" told the story of how Teeks and Ton wanted to beat Meta in a Pokemon battle after he singled handedly defeated Teeks' best Pokemon, Magnezone. The arc featured interesting battles, a training montage and Meta being beaten with a rock. This arc is the most popular arc in the Friendly Fire series to date. It was also based off a true story. Running Gags and Themes TV's A running gag throughout the Friendly Fire run is the use of the two visible TV’s in the house to showcase different comic’s made by friends of the author or comic’s he just likes to read in his spare time. Fillers During "The Quest For Brawl" arc, the members of the Friendly Fire house spent their time at Meta's Appartment in order to find Brawl. During this time, the author of Friendly Fire had no cast to tell his own jokes for, so instead of waiting for Ricky to finish, he made a number of filler issues involving famous Nintendo characters. The most popular of which was the Super Mario RPG filler issues, starting Geno, Mallow, Johnny Jones and Jinx. Other fillers included the Pokemon Center and PETA. The Smash Bros. Dojo Due to the comic taking place before the release of Super Smash Brothers Brawl, the author expressed his views on the constantly updating site, the Smash Bros. Dojo, through use of Friendly Fire. A number of jokes based on Brawl have been used in Friendly Fire since it became, making it the number 1 most referenced video game in the comic and perhaps Universe A history.